AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He didn’t give a shit how many lives he destroyed as long as he could afford his yacht in the Keys. So, I neededto take away the one thing he coveted more than anything else. Money. He needed to feel it all slipping away, the fancy apartment, cars, and expensive dinners out. Only then, when he had nothing left, would death come for him.
So, yes, I was crazy to take on a man like him when I didn’t really have to. But I was smart enough to recruit help. Brandy, my ride or die, had finally found the rest of their safe houses. Tonight, I would burn the crown jewels in his little network of safe houses. Tonight, I would set fire to the demons of my past.
The outside of the warehouse hadn’t changed, but I had. Misery still clung to this place like an oily cloud, but I was no longer afraid. I wasn’t the same girl they’d yanked out of a van wearing nothing but chains.
My belt held an assortment of knives courtesy of Dagger, additional rounds, and the grenade Gunner handed me before we left. Pull the pin and throw, check. That was literally what he said.
Over my black T-shirt a gun holster crisscrossed my back, complete with two new guns, one from my father and one from Switch. My old gun was tucked away in an ankle holster Ryder handed me earlier.
Strapped to my other ankle was another knife, ’cause as Dagger told me, you can never have too many. Most women would argue that it would be shoes or purses, but the shiny knife brought me a sense of security that no purse or shoe ever had.
“You okay?” Switch asked from beside me.
I’d jokingly said Delilah thought she wasLara Croft, but I looked the part. It made me feel like I could fuck the world up and walk away. Which was exactly what I intended to do.
“Never better.”
A rifle shot broke the stillness of the night and one of the guards by the front door dropped. The rest of the men scurried around like rats. Yes boys, you should be running.
We slipped through the same spot in the fence and started shooting anyone who came at us. Switch was annoyingly accurate, but I didn’t sweat it. Whether it was his bullet or mine no longer mattered to me because the result was the same.
Inside the front door, more men came running, and they all met the same fate. Each fallen guard put me closer to my goal, setting the women free.
In the main holding area, I grabbed a set of keys from the pocket of a dead guard and started opening cell doors. With each woman who tentatively stepped forward, afraid to hope that their suffering was at an end, I felt lighter, freer.
Tweak came behind me, handing out T-shirts to all the women. When the last one stepped out of her cage, I looked up at the ceiling, spread my arms wide, and laughed. Maybe Delilah was right, and I was more crazy than smart. That was fine by me. This was the most normal I’d felt since I was first taken.
On our way out, Gunner let me press the button to ignite the C-4 he’d wired the building with. From outside the gates, I watched my nightmare blow up. Burn baby burn. We couldn’t stick around for long because someone had to have heard that explosion. With one last look over my shoulder, I let go of all the horror and pain.
Fire was a type of rebirth, or so I’d heard, but I believed it to be true. At least for me. Tonight marked a new chapter ofmy life. One where the old Stella and the woman I’d become could live in harmony. Neither overshadowing the other. Melded together and stronger for it.
We hit a total of six warehouses just like the one they’d kept me in, and as I’d ridden away, watching each one burn from my rearview mirror, I felt a renewed sense of purpose. Vanload after vanload of women were now free to go back to their old lives or forge new ones.
Whenever I opened a cell door, and the woman inside would cower, I’d think about the promise I’d made to Bree, the first girl Switch and I saved. That I would kill them all. That I would keep her safe.
Only now, there were a lot more than just her that needed to be kept safe. Which was why instead of being sound asleep in bed next to Switch, I was sitting on Brandy’s porch swing. The same one Switch had slept on. Though, how he slept on this thing at all was a mystery to me.
The breeze teased the ends of my hair as I sat out here, keeping the night air from becoming muggy. Stars speckled the night sky, the moon full and glowing brightly above me. The crickets kept me company, their song filling the night air.
It should have brought me peace. Instead, the same thought kept turning around inside my brain, clinging like a vine, choking me with uncertainty. What if something happened to one of the women we saved tonight, or one of the women in my family, because I was hell-bent on having my cake and eating it too? What was I willing to risk in the name of vengeance?
A twig snapped to my left, and I sucked in a breath, my chest seizing. The outline of a man formed from the shadows, his profile too bloated and squat to be Hunter or Switch.
“You are a hard woman to track down, Miss McKenzie. It was a stroke of luck that Mateo happened to call me with your location before The Deviants killed him.”
His voice carried up the steps, his tone condescending and familiar. Antonio’s business partner, Stephen Day. The man whose destruction I’d been contemplating. In a bit of irony, he’d caught me alone, unaware, and without a weapon.
That was life for you, though. A cold hard bitch that slapped you when you least expected it. I’d already tempted fate once with Antonio and survived. I doubted I’d get that lucky again.
“You’re nothing but a filthy, repulsive little cockroach that’s scurried to my doorstep.”
“Everyone knows a cockroach can survive the apocalypse, while you Miss McKenzie, won’t survive the next five minutes, so I’ll take that as a compliment,” he snapped. “And without your father’s club here to protect you, you’re nothing but a girl who doesn’t know when to shut your mouth.”
“Pretty strong words coming from a man who plans to shoot an unarmed woman because he’s afraid of getting his ass kicked.”
It was a bold move, but right now it was the only way I could see myself making it out of this alive. Not that I expected him to take the bait. He made his living by selling something that wasn’t his to sell. Why would he suddenly decide to fight fair?
“Clever girl, but I can’t be so easily manipulated. I’m not one of your Neanderthals who only know how to solve problems with their fists.”
